When I visit London I usually do it to watch football games (Soccer for any americans stopping by). I love the atmosphere of the games, the intensity of the play and the pints of beer before and after the game.


Photo: Barnet Football Club's Underhill Stadium.

On this site there's plenty of advice on where to eat and sleep cheap in London. These tips are necessary in order to be able to visit London and watch football games without being ruined. But, I thought I should also throw in some tips on how I use to plan my football trips. Here's an "introductionary guide to watching football games for the tourist."

1. Which are the London teams?
The English Football pyramid consists of many ladders. In this article I'll concentrate on the teams in the 4 first ladders. If you want to watch professional football in London all these teams are located in London or close to London:

Premiership
Chelsea
Arsenal
Tottenham
Fulham
West Ham

Championship
Watford
Crystal Palace
Charlton
Queens Park Rangers

League 1
Luton
Milwall

League 2
Barnet
Brentford
Wycombe Wanderers
Dag & Red

2. When do they play?
To find out when the teams are playing home matches I use the BBC website's fixture lists. Here are the links you need:

Premiership fixtures

Championship fixtures
League 1 fixtures
League 2 fixtures

Usually the fixtures are at Saturday afternoon. But due to matches being moved to TV there's often games in London on other days in the week as well.

I use the fixtures list to find weekends where there's a game on Saturday afternoon and also one on Sunday or Monday as well. That way I can arrive in London on Friday or Saturday morning, watch two games before I head back home on Sunday or Monday.

3. How to get tickets
All the Premiership teams sell tickets through their websites and this is the recommended way to buy. It is often very difficult to get tickets for Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham games. These are the "big" clubs. You often have to resort to the black market to get tickets to these games. It helps to be a member of the supporter's club, these members often get rights to a certain amount of tickets.

For the other teams there will usually be no problem in turning up on match day and buy tickets at the stadium. Big local derbies and relegation/promotion fights towards the end of the season may be sold-out. But, in most instances you'll only have to turn up on match day and buy your ticket.

4. How much does it cost?
Big Premiership matches can cost as much as £60-70. A game in the lower leagues is likely to cost you £15-30 for a ticket.

5. How to get to the ground?
After I have decided on which matches to go to I visit http://www.footballgroundguide.co.uk/ and click on the team I am going to watch. Then I print out the travel instructions. Then I usually take the tube or railway to the station nearest the ground and walk to the stadium to buy tickets. If I have plenty of time I go to a local pub after the tickets are bought to knock back some pints before the game.

I hope this was a useful introduction on how to watch a football game in London. Enjoy the game!